Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Dreams Waking and Sleeping – A Primer




An Astrology-Plus Post






Article © 2013 by Joyce Mason
All Rights Reserved

July is dream month on The Radical Virgo! I’m migrating all my astrology and astrology-plus posts about complementary symbol systems to this blog while Writer-Astrologer Joyce Mason undergoes renovations. Astrology and astrology-plus will be housed on The Radical Virgo. My non-astrological writings will remain on joycemason.com. Sweet dreams!


I have been a dream catcher for as long as I can remember. After journaling my nightly entertainment and instruction for decades, I understand my own dream code. This is what it takes—writing it down and taking persistent shots at analyzing the content, until you see the patterns, rhyme and reason. Once you get the hang of your personalized symbols, the sky’s the limit on self-understanding.

Free guidance in your sleep. What could be more laid back? Effortless?


Even more enticing: This symbol system spills over into waking life. For instance, I got the message that it was time to look for my birth mom when the topic of adoption kept coming up in every other conversation and a magazine connecting adoptees and birth parents appeared in the window of my local bookstore. The one I passed every day and could not miss if I tried. A series of dreams about happy reunions complemented these waking hints, although the characters in the stories varied.

As you can see, the message I was supposed to “get” was a very simplified nugget of the material I was receiving. My world kept repeating “adoption, adoption” and my dreams whispered “happy reunions, happy reunions.” By not being hung-up on the details—by zeroing in on the simplest core message—my dreams came true, both sleeping and waking, in a happy reunion with Original Mom in 1986.

This reminds me of two of my favorite dreamwork techniques. One is to nugget your dream down to a single sentence, like a blurb in the TV Guide. Example from last night’s dream: Woman returns to her childhood home to find it renovated and moved to a different location.

I was the woman, but it’s better to take yourself out of the description, in case you or any other star is symbolic. Could be I represent someone else, as dreams are notorious for morphing one person into another and substituting one person for someone else with similar characteristics.

My childhood home represents security and happiness to me. My time in that little brick house were the best years of my life.

The blurb nuggets it down to a simple concept. The house can change in appearance or location, but I can still find what it represents in an uncertain world—stability.

The other technique I love is titling dreams. I took a workshop once where I learned this trick, and it has helped me vastly in dream synthesis—discovering the core message. It’s important to use your first inspiration in titles, as it is usually spot-on. I called my childhood home dream, Happy Childhood Home: Moved, Redone.

There are many other techniques I have developed over time, but the most important thing I want to share is that dreams are the portal to intuition and learning to use divine guidance toward abundant living. In order to mine your subconscious, you have to go down the shaft and hang out there—a lot. I know some people are scared of the dark, but remember that little light the miners wear on their heads to guide them on their way? Right on their third (intuitive) eye? It symbolizes insight, and the stuff they seek is treasure.

So, what if you’re somewhat new at all this? How do you get started?

If you don’t already remember your dreams, here’s a medical fact. You have them; you simply have not invited them into waking memory.

Here are some helpful dream memory tips:
  • Get enough sleep. I dream triple the content on days I can get 8-9 hours.
  • Avoid stimulants, especially caffeine, beyond morning

  • Avoid alcohol at night

  • Anything deeply relaxing before bedtime enhances—lavender baths, meditation, tense/release of muscles

  • Pray about or affirm your desire to remember your dreams. You can even write a note to your Higher Power requesting guidance on a specific issue and put it under your pillow.

  • Keep a note pad handy to jot down memories first thing upon waking, even in the middle of the night, along with a high intensity reading light that won’t bother your partner if you share a bed.

  • Put the herb mugwort under your pillow, which you’re likely to find at your local health food store. The scent stimulates dreams.

  • Use flower essences that evoke dreaming.

Dreams are so integral to the intuition and insight needed to have a cool life, no matter what your age; I encourage you to invite them into yours wholeheartedly. Dreams are like people. The more you court them and pay attention to them, the more they’ll want to hang out with you—and share themselves.


Revisit my Astrology and Dreams post from May 2010 to learn more about integrating these two symbol systems and to complete this set of posts by bringing it into the July Dream Month mix.


Finally, if you read this blog, you practice or are interested in astrology. With time, you’ll also start seeing how your dream symbols point to what’s happening in your chart. For instance, I had been dreaming a lot about genitals, especially male members. Freud would have had a field day with the content of my dreams. On the female side of gender anatomy, I dreamt I was bleeding way past menopause and profusely. That’s when I got the sense the message wasn’t sexual. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like my dreams were asking me to look at Mars in my chart. I was going through a period (no pun intended) of recovering from exhaustion, ergo the bleeding from a Mars-related part of my anatomy. I had been drained of all energetic resources/life’s blood. I couldn’t “get it up” when it came to energy. (OK, Freud, in that sense there was surely some penis envy.) I couldn’t activate my Mars for love or money. If only my Mars were at attention like the men in my dreams! (They seemed to be experiencing that four-hour plus problem they warn about in the Viagra commercials.) As you can see, dreams also have a sense of humor, apparently in keeping with their owners. (My Jupiter in Scorpio sure is evident in mine.)


For the fun of it, take your next set of repeated dream symbols and see what planet or sign they’re pointing to. What do you think they’re suggesting you do with a natal configuration or transit? 


I’ve had a theme going of cosmic hints to look at issues with my Mars for at least a year. Once I made that connection, I realized there was yet another aspect of Mars I needed to explore related to my vitality and how my natal trine between Jupiter and Mars symbolizes how easy it is for me to overdo and overstretch my energetic resources.

While dreams are the realm of the Moon and Neptune, they can “tune” you into any part of your chart and the subconscious content that’s waiting for your attention. I’d love to hear from you in the Comments about the dream-to-astrology interface—or your experience, in general, of working with your dreams.

~~~

Photo Credit: © deviantART - Fotolia.com


Keywords to Unlock Chiron – now available in PDF on the sidebar or at The Radical Virgo Store.  Learn the language of Chiron and how lingering pain and stumbling blocks are the catalysts to healing and weaving wholeness.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I dreamt astrological symbols before I studied astrology. Loved your post here.

Joyce Mason said...

Dear Anon,

How exciting! It must have been a great moment when you realized that the sky was speaking to you in your night movies. So glad you enjoyed the post.

There will be many more interesting goodies in the others during dream month. Hope you'll be back.